


You Can Never Go Home Again

by SimplexityJane



Series: Superheroine [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Cis Female Oliver, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:26:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8305342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplexityJane/pseuds/SimplexityJane
Summary: Olivia Queen is alive.





	

American hospitals had their own particular smell, clean and antiseptic and somehow metallic. In her private room in Starling City, Olivia breathed through her mouth. The metal afterthought and the bitterness in her throat were _not_ a good mix.

She’d watched the news. Earlier that day, a newscaster she remembered from before she’d ever set foot on Lian Yu had told the world she was back. Olivia Queen, billionaire party girl, lost for five years, had returned. This particular man hadn’t mentioned why she’d left in the first place, the scandal that had come out (and she would have laughed at that, before). She would have appreciated his discretion earlier in her life. Now it felt fake, stifling, like everything here. Maybe she shouldn’t have come back.

“Liv?”

Mom. Olivia tried not to tense, failed, turned away from the window to let Moira take her in. She knew how to drink in someone’s features with a glance, a skill learned before. Her mother didn’t use that particular skill right now, her hands shaking and her red eyes blinking away tears. She approached, those non-threats of hands coming up to cup Olivia’s face. They were cool, dry. A thousand happy memories were in those hands, and Olivia didn’t have to pretend to be overcome. Her smile was shaky, her eyes suspiciously hot.

Amanda Waller once told her tears could be weapons too, in the right hands. She wouldn’t use them against her mother, though.

“Mom,” she said. Half the emotions in that single syllable would have made Waller gag, but Olivia was free of ARGUS, had been for over a year.

“Baby, I can’t believe it,” her mother said, and then they were hugging. Olivia had to bend a little to do it; she got her height from Robert, her mother had always said that. “You’re finally _home_.”

She wished that were true.

* * *

Bringing Sara along hadn’t been the plan at first. She didn’t understand, not really, why Liv was leaving Starling City. Her parents, both of them, _actually_ supported her. They didn’t care who she loved.

But Liv felt smothered, cooped up (in a _mansion_ , which Tommy reminded her could still feel like a prison when he visited), like she couldn’t breathe. Every time she went outside to run she caught sight of reporters outside the gates, and she remembered that they’d done this to her. She got drunk with Tommy and Laurel, and they were sickeningly cute together, and they couldn’t understand. She’d punched a reporter, the one who outed her, and they thought it was _because_ she’d been drunk at the time.

Well, Laurel did. Tommy knew violence better than that.

Liv knew Sara wasn’t really in love with her. She brought her anyway, because god, she _needed_ her. She needed someone who, if not exactly like her, still understood what it was like. Even if they didn’t have a bitching session because Sara’s parents were okay with their bisexual daughter, it was nice, being with someone who actually liked her for a change.

“Don’t break her heart,” her dad said. “I like this one.”

She grinned, because her dad was telling the truth, and she took the wine back to her room.

Then everything fell apart.

* * *

Thea at seventeen didn’t look like Thea at twelve or Thea at fifteen (a precious memory, treasured and put away to look over in her darkest moments, not even tainted by the knowledge that she was acting out). She wasn’t quite done growing into herself yet, but the sharp angles to her chin looked like Moira, and the particular slant of her eyes was familiar.

“Hey, Speedy,” she said, because Thea needed to know that Olivia remembered that name. They were sisters; they were supposed to be close.

“Careful, Ollie, no one’s called me that in years.”

(Thea was the only one allowed to call her Ollie. When she was little she couldn’t say Olivia or Liv, something about the “v” sound. So to her, Olivia was Ollie. It had never changed, not even right before she left.)

Moira left them to go get lunch, looking back at Olivia and drinking her in one more time. Olivia wondered if Raisa was still here. She hoped so.

“So,” she said, in the suddenly stifling air. Thea hugged her arms together. Olivia wondered if she’d picked that up from Tommy sometime when she hadn’t been looking. She didn’t think anyone else they knew did it.

“So.” Thea pursed her lips, then said what she’d been holding in before. “I’m sorry I said you were faking. It was awful and stupid.”

Thea at twelve had believed solemnly in the power of peer pressure. Moira hadn’t helped, shouting at Olivia where Thea could hear about how she was just acting out (the only time her mother had ever shouted at her). Something Olivia had never understood was how a parent could believe their child would hurt themselves to hurt their parents too. Tatsu had agreed with her, when they talked about it. Moira had been hurt that Olivia had kept this from her, and they’d both grown since then.

“Hey, that doesn’t matter now.” She hugged Thea again, pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You were twelve, remember? Oh, hey, I almost forgot. I have something for you.”

She hadn’t been _close_ to forgetting. But her whole life was a lie now. What was a smaller one, for her baby sister’s sake?

* * *

Tommy had a ring on his finger, which Olivia had been expecting, to be honest. He hadn’t had one in Hong Kong, but it had been over two years since then, and he’d been working up the nerve to propose to Laurel before she left. He looked more like his father than he ever had. He was working at Merlyn Global now, nine to five. He’d taken a personal day to meet up with Olivia.

He still smelled the same, which she hadn’t even thought about until they were hugging. Expensive cologne and aftershave and, for some reason, wool, and it was five, ten, fifteen years ago. She was eight years old again, sneaking into Malcolm’s bathroom to see what he kept there and spraying the dark bottle right at Tommy’s hand.

“Where’d you go?” Tommy asked, and she had to smile. There was a reason he was her best friend.

“Nowhere. I was just… remembering the cologne incident.”

“I don’t smell _that bad_ ,” Tommy said. He grimaced, then grinned at her, and she would have laughed at that before. She did now, but it wasn’t real. She just wanted to sit in his car and soak him in, how he was still the same after all this time. Sure, he had a job and an apartment, but he was still him. Still Tommy Merlyn, still her best friend in the whole world. “Now, how about Big Belly Burger for lunch? I know, I know, it’s not a fancy restaurant, but…”

“That sounds amazing,” she said. This time it was all real.

On their way back to the car, she watched him fall and tensed. She pulled the dart from her skin and got a good look at the attackers – four, wearing masks, carrying guns – before the dark haze overtook her.

When she came to, Tommy was still unconscious. For a moment all she saw was red, but she pulled herself back. Anatoly’s lessons in controlling her temper when she wanted to _murder_ someone were paying off, at least.

She still killed them, of course, but she didn’t make mistakes.

* * *

Laurel was waiting outside the precinct, and Olivia flinched. Tommy flashed a look her way, and she knew what he was asking. She shook her head, barely, and he relaxed.

(Five, ten, fifteen years ago, she’d been in love with Laurel Lance. She thought maybe she’d always love her, even with Sara and Shado and Taiana’s memories to contend with. But Laurel Lance had never been an option. Maybe that was part of it, some self-flagellation that she couldn’t help. She didn’t know, and she didn’t want to.)

“Olivia,” Laurel said, and her smile was strained. Olivia wasn’t sure she wasn’t a mirror image in expression. First Quentin, now Laurel. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” She nodded, glanced at the rings on one particular finger of hers. She smiled, a little wicked. Tonight she’d take on Adam Hunt to save her city, but right now she wasn’t saving anyone. She was teasing. “Is it Mrs. Merlyn now?”

Tommy snorted, and Laurel kissed him on the cheek with a truer smile than before.

“No, it’s still Lance.”

“We’re progressive,” Tommy said. She nodded, and she hoped she didn’t look too skeptical. She knew, of course, why Laurel wouldn’t change her name to Merlyn, especially when she’d joined CNRI. Tommy did too. That particular name would have helped further Laurel’s career, but, well.

Laurel Lance had always done things herself. Olivia admired that about her.

“So, some guy in a _hood_ saved your lives?” Laurel asked, trying to get them off the subject of their relationships. It was unsubtle for a lawyer, but they’d been friends for over a decade before she left. Olivia nodded, and she was glad her hair was short. If everyone saw a man when they looked at her, it would be better for her secret.

Everyone underestimated her, along with women in general. Before, she hadn’t known how to use that.

Now she did, god have mercy on anyone who got in her way.

**Author's Note:**

> So, something that doesn't really fit in here but should be mentioned: Tommy settles down much quicker in this AU because he and Laurel get together about as early in life as canon Oliver and Laurel did, and he's not a flighty idiot like pre-island Oliver was. They are very happy, and their relationship will affect things going forward in a big way. 
> 
> As always, no beta. If you catch anything wrong with the grammar, let me know and I'll fix it.


End file.
